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Health care costs attributable to overweight calculated in a standardized way for three European countries

Author

Listed:
  • M. Lette
  • W. Bemelmans
  • J. Breda
  • L. Slobbe
  • J. Dias
  • H. Boshuizen

Abstract

This article presents a tool to calculate health care costs attributable to overweight in a comparable and standardized way. The purpose is to describe the methodological principles of the tool and to put it into use by calculating and comparing the costs attributable to overweight for The Netherlands, Germany and Czech Republic. The tool uses a top-down and prevalence-based approach, consisting of five steps. Step one identifies overweight-related diseases and age- and gender-specific relative risks. Included diseases are ischemic heart disease, stroke, hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, colorectal cancer, postmenopausal breast cancer, endometrial cancer, kidney cancer and osteoarthritis. Step two consists of collecting data on the age- and gender-specific prevalence of these diseases. Step three uses the population-attributable prevalence to determine the part of the prevalence of these diseases that is attributable to overweight. Step four calculates the health care costs associated with these diseases. Step five calculates the costs of these diseases that are attributable to overweight. Overweight is responsible for 20–26 % of the direct costs of included diseases, with sensitivity analyses varying this percentage between 15–31 %. Percentage of costs attributable to obesity and preobesity is about the same. Diseases with the highest percentage of costs due to overweight are diabetes, endometrial cancer and osteoarthritis. Disease costs attributable to overweight as a percentage of total health care expenditures range from 2 to 4 %. Data are consistent for all three countries, resulting in roughly a quarter of costs of included diseases being attributable to overweight. Copyright The Author(s) 2016

Suggested Citation

  • M. Lette & W. Bemelmans & J. Breda & L. Slobbe & J. Dias & H. Boshuizen, 2016. "Health care costs attributable to overweight calculated in a standardized way for three European countries," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(1), pages 61-69, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:eujhec:v:17:y:2016:i:1:p:61-69
    DOI: 10.1007/s10198-014-0655-8
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Pieter H M van Baal & Johan J Polder & G Ardine de Wit & Rudolf T Hoogenveen & Talitha L Feenstra & Hendriek C Boshuizen & Peter M Engelfriet & Werner B F Brouwer, 2008. "Lifetime Medical Costs of Obesity: Prevention No Cure for Increasing Health Expenditure," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(2), pages 1-8, February.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jesse D Malkin & Drishti Baid & Reem F Alsukait & Taghred Alghaith & Mohammed Alluhidan & Hana Alabdulkarim & Abdulaziz Altowaijri & Ziyad S Almalki & Christopher H Herbst & Eric Andrew Finkelstein & , 2022. "The economic burden of overweight and obesity in Saudi Arabia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(3), pages 1-8, March.
    2. Maximilian Tremmel & Ulf-G. Gerdtham & Peter M. Nilsson & Sanjib Saha, 2017. "Economic Burden of Obesity: A Systematic Literature Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-18, April.
    3. Anne-Laure Feral-Pierssens & Claire Carette & Claire Rives-Lange & Joane Matta & Marcel Goldberg & Philippe Juvin & Marie Zins & Sebastien Czernichow, 2018. "Obesity and emergency care in the French CONSTANCES cohort," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(3), pages 1-12, March.
    4. Margherita d’Errico & Milena Pavlova & Federico Spandonaro, 2022. "The economic burden of obesity in Italy: a cost-of-illness study," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(2), pages 177-192, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Overweight; Cost calculation; Health care costs; Macrolevel data; C82; I19;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C82 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data; Data Access
    • I19 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Other

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